Chapter Text
Of all the messes she’d fixed, Louise recognized this barely cracked the top five of worst ever.
At least with this spill, only soda dribbled off the countertop and onto the floor below, even if the concrete eagerly drank up another chance to try on a sticky cola coat. She could throw down a rag, prop a wet floor sign, and deal with it later.
The issue came from the spill rocketing to item number three on her Deal With It list, shuffling all her other priorities around again.
Currently, she needed to handle the crying baby foisted onto her while the mom used the restroom, handle the burgers dangerously close to browning to a medium on one side, and handle the guy attempting to stiff her—with no hands left to give him the bird.
“Um, Miss? I was hoping to order…”
Stifling every urge to scream, Louise nodded.
“You’re number five in line.”
“Oh. What number are you on right now?”
“One through four,” she grunted.
Hoisting the baby under one arm, she swiped the grumpy haggler’s wallet from the counter to give the child something to play with. The crying ceased and the guy trying to wheedle her down two bucks was too shocked to speak.
With the momentary silence, she dipped into the back, leaning to keep the baby out of the kitchen but angling enough to flip the two burgers with her free hand. Using a free foot, she snagged the mop and bucket from the corner and kicked it out past the door and into the dining room. Spinning, she followed the bucket and, in one turn, managed to lay out the mop and a wet floor sign, hand the wallet back to the weirdo, and hand the baby back to the mom leaving the restroom while dodging the other woman sprinting to the sink.
In her next turn, she spun right back to behind the counter, pen and notepad in hand.
“Right after this cheapskate hands me nine dollars, I’ll get your order.”
“Nine?? After you stole my wallet?”
“Do you want to see what else I can do with that mop?”
Grumbling, the guy fished out a five and four ones exactly, wordlessly communicating he would NOT be tipping her. Fine by her, the extra dollar to afford him niceties wasn’t worth it. She pocketed the cash and waved him off.
With a click of her pen, Louise nodded to the new customer.
“Alright, your turn.”
“Uh…”
That hesitation sounded like ticking off items six through eight to her, but first she scanned the restaurant for any newcomers or new problems.
The sizzle from the grill alerted her to pull the burgers. The lady who spilled her soda hadn’t returned from her trip to the bathroom, but she’d be back soon for her refill.
The other lady over in the corner still tapped away on a tablet, no closer to finishing her basket of fries than she was twenty minutes ago.
Louise’s lips pursed.
If that customer had stopped breaking from her food to stare at her, Louise could have turned that table already. But, at least the creep hadn’t added more chores to her list in the meantime.
The smell of beef tickled her nose, so she slid the guy still ordering a menu to squint at instead of the board on the wall.
“How about I give you a minute before you pick the first thing you see on the menu?”
“That’d be great, thanks.”
With a quick promise to be back, she whisked away for table three’s Blue’s on Wurst burgers, sliced apples for the baby, and a refill for the spill.
Louise survived.
Backup never came, not that she checked for that part-timer’s excuse for not showing up, but she didn’t need them.
She handled it.
Winding down after the lunch rush, Louise exhaled for what felt like the first time in two hours and listened to the sound bounce off the walls of an empty restaurant. Arms sore, she powered through aches to tug off and then retie her bandana, groaning all the while.
Hair tucked away again, Louise closed her eyes and rolled her neck at the same time, matching the lazy speed of the ketchup-stained ceiling fan blade above her.
“Wow.”
Her head jerked to locate the source of the noise.
Tucked in the booth closest to the entrance, Tablet Lady sat, fries now finished and pushed to the side along with her devices. Her attention zeroed in on the restaurateur, sharp and focused. Testing her gaze, Louise swayed to the side only for the woman’s dark eyes to follow her every move.
Louise had assumed she'd left after paying her bill, but apparently she'd stuck around just to recreate a jungle scene, like a panther stalking her prey.
“Did you need something?”
“I do, but we’ll get into that later.” The woman stood, her black curls bouncing with momentum as she made her way over and stuck out her hand. “Regan Roberts.”
Furrowing her brows, Louise accepted the handshake with careful movements.
“Louise Belcher,” she said slowly.
“Huh. I was kind of thinking it’d be Bob. Because of the sign.”
“Nope. It’s Louise.”
“So… where is Bob? Or do you usually do this all alone?”
Taking a step back, Louise crossed her arms and tried to guess Regan’s angle. Was she looking for a job? Trying to sell her something?
“I’m holding down the fort for my folks while they’re at a convention. Family business.”
“You’re pretty good at holding down the fort. Juggled a lot, kept your cool, didn’t take shit. And you’re cute too.”
“Did you need something?” Louise repeated, still unable to ascertain a motive.
“I do,” Regan also repeated. “How would you like to make some extra cash?”
Every alarm sounded in her head, the ones that good girls heard when an offer should be immediately rejected, but Louise had never really been that good at following rules in the first place. Some extra green could really liven the place up. They could fix the neon outside. Replace the stool cushions.
And then there was…
Burning a hole through the cobwebs of her memories, an abandoned dream caught fire at the mention of money.
“How much cash?”
“A lot.”
“Keep talking.”
A babysitting gig.
That was all Regan wanted in the end.
Though she’d left earlier with quite a few of the terms undisclosed, Regan urged Louise to message her for more information.
She locked the restaurant and sighed. Apparently the kid was some kind of high profile brat, and it made getting any of the details painful. Regan even texted a link to an NDA she would have to look over tonight. A cursory glance told her it seemed legit, but she wouldn’t make a final decision until she put to use the one and a half law courses under her belt.
Or maybe cash in a favor from Fischoeder and borrow one of his lawyers? He owed her a few, both favors and lawyers.
Shaking her head at the thought, Louise committed to doing this herself. If it ended up being a scheme, at least only her business might suffer for it. And no one would have to know she fell for a trick, either.
With her spare key, she unlocked the empty apartment, her calves protesting any journeys farther than up the stairs and to one of Mom and Dad’s spare rooms.
Head hitting the pillow in Tina’s childhood bedroom, she took out her phone to warn her parents of her presence before they got home later that night. The NDA notification, a glaring red balloon, demanded her attention before she reached Bob’s name in her messages.
Groaning for what felt like the hundredth time, Louise cracked open the link from Regan first.
After her fourth reread, she concluded that nothing in the contract seemed too out of place. There was a line about a non-compete, which, okay, she wouldn’t babysit other rich people’s kids.
The other part that bugged her was how thoroughly it stressed discretion. Sure, for a non disclosure it made sense, but there were about three pages covering consultants, social media, friends and family. Louise hadn’t watched anyone’s children in ages—besides when they were handed off to her in the restaurant for a few minutes. She might need advice.
She cursed bathroom lady’s baby for giving Regan the idea that she knew what she was doing.
If she DID end up needing babysitting help, one person stuck out as an absolute must for her to be able to contact. Louise pulled up Regan’s contact again in her texts.
Well. That was quick.
Confirming with the map, Regan’s office appeared to nestle a little deeper near Hollywood than Louise ever traveled. Seymour’s Bay might just be the dingiest beach town in California, but it and neighboring Bog Harbor had everything she needed, making longer trips to the more well-populated areas not necessary.
But, Regan’s office was also near a Chili’s, and a cheap margarita to soothe the soul in case the whole thing blew up in her face didn’t sound so bad.
Louise agreed to the meeting. Her first mistake.
She pitched 11am, but Regan pushed back to 2pm. Whatever, more sleep for her.
She shut her eyes and wondered about tomorrow, with absolutely no idea what awaited her.
“Louuiisee…”
Pap
“Louise.”
Pap Pap
“Time to wake up, baby.”
Smack
Prying her eyes open, Louise saw a blanket of beige. One last snore left in the chamber, the smell of batter and butter infiltrated her nose. She grabbed at the floppy thing covering her eyes.
“Mom? Did you throw a whole pancake at me?”
“Well, I started with the rejects, but that wasn’t working.”
Louise sat up, and a shower of mini, misshapen pancakes rained down over her bed.
Linda looked unapologetic. More than that, she looked absolutely pleased it had worked. Pocketing her back up cakes in a fuzzy pink robe pocket, she reached over and patted Louise’s knee still under the covers.
“Yayyy, there’s my little sunshine! Come on, your dad made breakfast.”
“Ugh.”
“Oh, too good for a free home cooked meal, are we?”
“Uuggghhhhh…”
“Up up up. I don’t care if you’re nine or fifty-nine, we eat breakfast together when you’re home.”
It took every ounce of strength she possessed, but Louise valiantly dragged herself from bed, trudged to the kitchen, and plopped down on a familiar seat.
Thunk
Just before her head hit the table.
“Hey, how’d you sleep?” Bob asked above her, a plate softly landing on the wood, a little ways from her head.
“Mmmhmm.”
“Okay.”
Propping her chin up on her elbow, she explained, “We were slammed yesterday, and Bud never showed.”
“Oh. Sorry. I’d fire him if he wasn’t the only person willing to work for potatoes.”
“That’s not a saying either,” Linda chipped in as she breezed into the kitchen with an armful of bed pancakes. “We gave him a bag of potatoes last week. He was thrilled.”
“‘S fine,” Louise said with a shrug. “How was the convention?”
They might not have heard her. Dumping the scraps, Linda clapped her hands clean, then twirled on the spot to embrace Bob. With a beaming smile, she took the plate he fixed her from his hands and leaned up to kiss his cheek. He returned her smile, patted her hip in a one-handed hug, and kissed the top of her head.
So wrapped up in each other, they never answered Louise. She looked down at the table, finally grabbing her fork and stabbing at the pancakes until one of them sat down.
Linda joined her first.
“Ohhh, it makes me so happy when I have one of my babies back under our roof! You know, I’d prefer all of them, but I’ll settle for my baby baby. For now.” Linda punctuated the sentiment with a too tight hug, and Louise exaggerated her lack of oxygen.
“Don’t get too used to it,” she said between her struggles for air (but she did return the hug, a little). “I’m headed out this afternoon.”
“Is it another one of your odd jobs?” Bob asked as he slid into his chair at the dining table.
“Maybe? I got offered a six month contract yesterday, so I’m going to get more details before I sign.”
“Doing what?”
“Babysitting.”
“Really? And that pays?”
“Pays wayyy more than you think,” Louise whistled as she imagined the number again. “It’s just going to take a lot of my time apparently, and I can’t talk about it.”
“What? Why?” Linda’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Is it secret babysitting?”
“I don’t really know. They want me to sign an NDA.”
“An MBA??” Linda’s mouth fell open with a gasp. “They mean business.”
“Yeah exactly,” she snickered without correcting her mom.
“Louise,” Bob warned. Shaking his head, he jerked his chin. “Is it safe?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out this afternoon.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m an ex One-Eyed Snake, so I think I can handle what they throw at me.” Rolling her eyes, Louise shoveled more food in her mouth and kept talking. “It’ll be fine.”
Her parents exchanged glances over the table. Without ever saying a word, they conveyed history and care and advice on how to move forward to each other, and Louise knew it wasn’t the pancakes sitting like a rock in her stomach. She took another bite to be sure and then another just because she liked syrup.
“If I could handle an internship at the Wharf when I was sixteen, a biker gang, and the other fifty thousand jobs I’ve done, I think I can handle this,” she said and pointedly finished her breakfast.
“Sure sweetie, sure,” Linda reassured. She offered another smile, though this one shone a little less. “Just call us after, okay?”
Louise agreed to keep her family in the loop. Her second mistake.
She drove her bike to the meeting.
In her defense, it was usually much easier to find parking in LA when on a motorcycle. Especially if Louise opted for a looser interpretation of what counted as parking.
In her other defense, it was defense. Try to throw her a curveball, and they’d be guessing how many hidden knives she had tucked away in her jacket and boots, which may seem extreme for babysitting but, hey, she meant business.
The office entrance finally bled into view, and she parked in the lot right outside a very normal looking building. She cut the engine and dismounted, shrugging off her helmet in the process.
Without a tinted visor to protect her, she squinted in the harsh afternoon sun, stepping forward a few paces blindly until a shadow fell over her. She expected it to be the building’s, but instead when she looked up she found an enormous billboard.
It was a nonsensical cologne ad, trying to sell a scent without smell. Though the image seemed to blend at first in black and white, Louise paused to note how striking a figure the model cut when examined closer. He laid on his side, nearly naked, palming a… mango? In the rain? Everything screamed drama, a stark contrast to the bored look in the model’s eyes. She couldn’t blame him. In fact, she envied hot mango guy’s boredom. At least he knew he was going to be in his underwear when he showed up for the job, whereas she still guessed at the true nature of her upcoming role.
Too late for backing out now—she’d already used the gas—Louise straightened her hair as much as she needed to. The bandana had done its job, and she thought everything seemed pretty in order in the reflection of the giant bay windows. Breezing into the office, she nodded at the receptionist.
“I’m here to see Regan,” Louise grunted at an elderly woman behind the desk, who did not take kindly to being grunted at. Sniffing, she finished clacking on her keyboard pointedly before looking up.
“And you are?”
“Louise.” At the woman’s expectant stare, she tacked on, “and you?”
“Brianne. But I’m looking for a last name.”
“Oh.” Coughing, she added, “Belcher. Louise Belcher.”
“She’s… expecting you,” Brianne said wearily. “Go ahead and sign in on the sheet there.”
“Uh, sure.”
With a glance, Louise didn’t see another option and set her helmet down on top of the receptionist desk in order to take the pen and scribble her name along one of the lines.
“Great. Down the hall, last door on the right.”
“Cool, do you mind watching this?”
“Actually-”
“Thanks,” Louise finished and patted her helmet before heading off.
Not quite out of earshot, she caught the tail end of Brianne’s grumbling. She expected it, receptionists tended not to love her, but she couldn’t exactly parse out what “made in heaven” was supposed to mean. No use questioning it, Louise moved on until she rapped at a door with Regan’s name on it.
“Come in!”
So she did.
Greeting Louise with a wide smile, Regan gestured her to move deeper into the extremely normal—if a little cluttered—office. Papers took up most of the room, scattered across the desk, balled up and missing the trash can, lining the bulletin boards. She didn’t bother reading them but noticed a lot seemed to be… headshots?
“Thank you so much for coming in. You’re doing me a huge favor, but I’m hoping to return that.”
“Yeah… sure,” she said and slumped into the guest chair across from Regan’s desk. “I read through the NDA. I think I’m ready to sign if you could just tell me a little more about what the hell is happening?”
“Oh yeah,” Regan waved her off. “Of course you’re going to want to know more. It’s just, you know, there are a lot of moving parts, so I thought maybe this would be easier if we just…”
Hitting a button on her desk phone, she spoke into the mic, “Can you go ahead and free him?”
A commotion broke out immediately after.
Shouts echoed down the hall that Louise had just come from. If she had a glass of water, she was sure she would see ripples as the stomping grew closer and closer to them.
The door flew open, and an irate man stormed in.
“Are you fucking crazy? I agreed to come out here willingly, and you decide to LOCK me in a room?!”
After a quick scan, Louise took stock of the new information currently stamping around like a bull with steam erupting from its snout. He held a palpable rage in him, that part she gleamed easily, but it didn’t activate that fight or flight instinct to reach for one of her knives.
Frankly, he was too pretty to be a threat.
He had that Hollywood blond hair, disheveled on purpose. Tall, with too much confidence in his stride. Commanding the room with a look, he expected to get his way but played it up anyway.
Why waste people’s time with the dramatics then? Louise wondered.
Something about him seemed oddly familiar, but nothing popped out to her. Maybe she had seen him at a wedding once? But the sea of faces blurred in her mind, so she stared at him blankly.
Barely registering her presence at first, the man finally peered down now. He braced, expecting… something, but it never came.
So they both stared at each other, equally confused until Regan spoke.
“Louise, please meet your client.”
Raising an eyebrow, she turned and finished the statement for the other woman. “… ‘s dad, right? Client’s dad?”
“Dad?? I’m not a-” the man stopped himself in the middle of his sentence and shot a questioning gaze to Regan. She shook her head, so he continued. “I’m not a dad.”
“So remember how I said the job involved watching someone?” Regan twirled her wrist. “This is the someone.”
The man’s mouth fell open, and he gestured wildly around the room before finding the words.
“You can’t be serious—you’re really trying this again??” He demanded.
“The last time was different,” his agent argued. “That was a German housekeeper.”
“The British Nanny was busy,” he scoffed as an aside to Louise, who would have found it almost funny if she wasn’t so confused.
“And obviously someone whose role is confined to the house wasn’t going to work. You need someone that can move with you. So, Louise here will actually be posing as your partner.”
Silence.
“Like… a business partner?” Louise asked, hope hanging on by a thread to the end of her question.
“Um. No.”
More silence.
And then the opposite of silence as Louise shot out of her seat and their voices overlapped, fighting for the title of loudest in the room.
“Posing as WHAT?!” “Hold on, she is NOT who I-” “I didn’t sign up for-” “Like look at her tits?”
That one stopped her, and in the next second her fist collided with his gut. He fell to the floor with a satisfying thud, and she stepped over his groaning body, intent on leaving the room.
“It’s been great, thanks for… whatever this was,” Louise tossed over her shoulder, heading for the doorknob.
“Wait! Please. You’re my- well, his last chance.”
The desperation kept her from leaving, but only so she could throw a disbelieving look at the other woman reaching over her desk to plead with Louise.
The man, still fetal, shot her a deadly glare from the ground.
“No no, you’re right,” he said while clutching his stomach. “You should go.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Too late. Get lost, tiny tits.”
“Up yours,” she growled back at him. It crossed her mind to kick him while he was down, and she would have too, if not for Regan’s next words.
“Monthly stipend!”
Like magic, she froze in place.
“Hm?”
“On top of the amount we already discussed, I can give you a stipend after each successful month.” Rubbing between her eyebrows, Regan stood straight then gestured again to the chair. “Please, just sit back down and we can talk about this.”
Fuuuuuck.
The mental math assessing the cost and risk already began to tip the scales dangerously in favor of babysitting.
Regan had already promised a lot of cash. Too much cash. Enough cash where Louise genuinely thought she might have accidentally signed up for some kind of high end porno. But then a stipend on top?
Regrettably, Louise slouched back into the chair, pointedly ignoring the curses next to her as the man rolled and hobbled into his own chair.
“I know, it’s already seeming like… a lot.” Regan sighed, flipping through a pile of papers without reading them. “And I’m not going to lie to you, he might try to chew you up and spit you out. This whole world is… it’s a lot.” She dropped the papers and focused back on her guest genuinely. “But I saw you in that restaurant, Louise. You can handle it, and you can handle him.”
“Enough smooth talk,” Louise said and swatted the air as though physically batting away the flattery. “Who is he?”
More enraged garblings erupted from the chair next to her. She hadn’t bothered to look over at him while he squawked his objections.
“What do you mean who is he?? He is me. You know me.”
What a weird assertion.
Like it pained her to address him, Louise turned slowly to the man already staring at her hard.
She finally made eye contact with him, and, behind the bewildered rage, she noticed something. The angle was off though, and she tilted her head to make up for it. He only watched her try to put the pieces together, stunned now that he recognized her sincerity.
Her brows furrowed, and Louise inspected his face again, catching that vague sense of familiarity from earlier and tugging at it until it formed an idea.
“Oh! Mango Man, from the billboard.”
Guffawing, Regan broke the tension and doubled over in laughter at the mention, while Mango Man turned a slightly flustered pink that morphed into annoyance.
“Not just- no. From TV.”
She thought harder. From TV…
If she tilted her head a bit more, then that hint of familiarity strengthened. His eyebrows furrowed until they matched a much younger, 2D version of himself that Louise had in fact seen every time she bothered her sister in her room.
“Wait… Brock?”
“Brock,” the man scoffed. “It’s Blake.” Blinking, he shook his head hard. “I mean, no, Logan. I’m Logan Bush.”
“Ohhh Blaaaake.” Louise wagged a finger at him as it started coming back to her. “From the show. What was it… Class- Crassroom. You were Blake in The Crassroom.”
“I was in other things too,” he huffed.
“Right, like the mango ad,” she shot back. “But the show is like the main one, right?”
“That’s… actually the problem,” Regan cut in. “I need him to be in more things.”
“Sorry to say, but I never actually made it into the directing scene, nor do I care about whatever this is, so-”
“That’s even better!” A manic look taking over Regan’s eyes set Louise on the edge, but the other woman continued. “Someone that doesn’t care! You’re cute, you’re not going to baby him, you’re capable. The stars lined up and gave me you, so now I’m giving you to him.”
That sentence hung in the air around them, discomforting and strange.
“Don’t say it like that,” Logan commanded, and Louise found herself on his side for the first time.
“Whatever, look.” Regan pushed a stack of papers to the side, uncaring of how they spilled over the edge of the desk. Snatching a thick folder, she paraded it in front of the two people watching her. “This! Is the amount of roles we’ve auditioned for. And this-” she dropped that folder with an audible thump and swiped a singular piece of paper from the other stack. “This is how many we’ve booked. He’s not a teenager anymore, the wild bachelor thing is getting pretty old, and all of his agents have dropped him like a hot potato.”
“If you’re going to talk about me like I’m not-”
“And beliiieve me, I would too,” Regan said with a glare. “I’m the last person on earth that is willing to work with this asshole, and I’m only doing it as a favor to my brother. So for Troy’s sake, you,” she pointed a violent finger at Logan, “shut up and go along with it. Or you-know-who is going to get back to town with a whole lot to say.”
That quieted him down.
Slumping in his seat, Logan crossed his arms and glared at the wall, a stubborn set to his jaw as he refused to say another word.
“So…” Louise broke the silence. “Where do I come in?”
“I need someone to train him. Whip him into shape. It can’t be obvious, no, the little gossips would looove to run his name through the mud if they knew he needed help, and then he’s done for. But if I get you to pose as his girlfriend, we’re in the clear.”
“You want me to fix him.”
“Sort of. His image. But also, yes exactly.”
“But he doesn’t want to be fixed.”
“That is correct.”
“And how much are you planning on paying me for this?”
“A butt load.”
Whistling, Louise sat back in her chair.
She crossed her arms and glared as she focused. In the back of her mind, she recognized how she mirrored Logan, both stubbornly taking in information and not sure of their next move.
The concept wasn’t completely foreign to her. They lived close enough to Hollywood to hear stories from a friend of a friend who had to do ridiculous shit for actors and PR. Louise certainly never thought she would get dragged into the mix. The deal shouldn’t be tempting her at all, but…
But Louise hadn’t caught a break in quite a long while.
She could use the money, and at the end of the day he was just a guy. She knew how to handle guys. Slap ‘em around a bit, and they roll over to beg for more.
She leaned forward.
“It’s not like your dreams are tied up in that burger joint,” Regan added. “I think this could be a huge benefit to helping you do what you want to do instead. You’re worth more than bussing tables for a bunch of whiny customers.”
Her mouth twitched into a deeper frown, and on instinct Louise shook her head.
The rejection forced its way through on its own accord.
“Nice try, but no.” Clenching the arms of the chair, Louise stood. “I’m not giving up half a year to babysit a grown ass man. I think I’ll just go ahead and head back to my regular, dead end job now.”
With a sarcastic salute, Louise turned to go and caught Logan’s eye.
She hadn’t realized how gray they were, assuming like every other blondie starlet he’d have those piercing (and unsettling) baby blues. These weren’t as striking, blue but muted, and Louise… couldn’t look away.
Reading people came from years of experience. She met all kinds, between the restaurant and the Wharf. Everyone had their own story, and she had seen enough to last a lifetime already.
What made Louise’s boots pause now was how his look didn’t want to tell her anything, but he couldn’t help the barrage. She failed to recall ever reading someone who loudly projected his thoughts while obviously trying to hide something behind them.
He wanted her to leave. He expected it, even.
And he hated that, too.
Strange.
She proved him right and left without protest, halfheartedly promising to think it over while wondering how long to wait until blocking Regan’s number.